Children of Elm Street: A Nightmare Tale
by gamester76
Summary: When Taylor and her cousin Carson move to Springwood with their family, they quickly find themselves at the center of a long battle between the dream demon Freddy Krueger, and a group of young teens with special powers: the Dream Warriors. Taylor soon discovers her own special abilities, but will she help the Dream Warriors or bring about something far more dangerous? Updated 1/1/1
1. A New Nightmare

Happy Halloween, dear readers! Today, I am posting the first chapter of my new "Nightmare on Elm Street" story, "Children of Elm Street!" The story follows a group of young teenagers as they fight Freddy with the help of previous survivors! But a more dangerous threat may be lurking around the corner... For more Freddy, check out my companion story, "The Last Meal," here on FanFiction! Also, for the Halloween lovers out there, check out "In His Image," a terrifying new story featuring Michael Myers! For "CoES," chapters will be published bi-weekly. In the meantime, don't fall asleep...

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><p><em>"Children of Elm Street: A Nightmare Tale", <em>_by Jake Reed_

...

May 13th, 2011

Amy Sterling ran down the hallway with her book bag swinging against her back. She had woken up late that morning and missed the bus, causing her to have to run to the high school. By the time she arrived, the bell had rung and she was late for her first class.

Amy was a pretty girl. She was fifteen years old, but she was short for her age and a bit on the skinny side. Her auburn hair came down to her neck and the way she always styled it, the entire left side of her face was covered by it.

She stopped to catch her breath as she came up to her classroom. She was anticipating a stern lecture from Mr. Shaye about tardiness, and a bunch of dirty looks from her classmates.

Amy took a deep breath and prepared herself to catch all kinds of hell when she opened the door. She looked around the classroom, but nobody was paying any attention to her; they all were looking down at their desks, taking what seemed to be some kind of exam. And instead of Mr. Shaye, someone else was in his desk; a substitute.

He wore a red polo shirt with a green jacket. Despite the obvious receding of his blonde hair, he was kinda handsome. His glasses made him look younger than he appeared. He had a brown fedora, which looked like it had seen better days. Thin stubble decorated his chin, and his right hand had fingernails that gleamed like polished silver and seemed slightly longer than those on his other hand.

"Nice of you to join us, Ms..." He paused to look at the planning book. "Sterling, I presume?"

Amy nodded meekly.

"Well, Mr. Shaye is out sick today. I'll be your sub. Here, the other students are taking a quiz." He handed Amy a paper and she took her seat next to her friend, Arnold.

"Best of luck, Amy," the sub said. "It's open-book, by the way, so feel free to use it."

Amy opened her history book and instantly felt tired. It was like a wave of exhaustion had washed over her. It had also suddenly got very hot. It was like someone had stuck a space heater right on front of her desk.

"Hey, Arnold," she said. "Does it seem hot to you?"

Arnold didn't respond; he continued to stare down at his test. Amy closed her eyes as she wiped the sweat from her brow with her hand. There was a crackling sound coming from the back of the room, and it sounded, to Amy, like someone opening a bag of chips very loudly. She opened her eyes and turned around to ask the person messing with it to stop.

It wasn't a bag of chips.

A fire was spreading through the back of the classroom. The students were screaming, stuck in their chairs, flames licking their bodies and melting their flesh from their bones. The students at the front of the room sat and did nothing while their classmates burned alive.

Arnold was also on fire, writhing on the floor next to his desk while the sub merely sat and watched, a look of grim satisfaction in his eyes.

Amy stood up and started to run over to Arnold help him, but she was too late. He doubled over and screamed as his body burnt to ashes right before her eyes. The sound of his scream didn't die until after his flesh was completely gone and the fire finally burnt his lungs, leaving only a still-screaming skeleton with burning organs laying on the floor beneath it.

The fire was spreading faster, and more students were being burned alive by it. Amy ran for the door and touched the handle, but yanked it away when she found it was glowing hot! She looked at her hand and saw welts already forming on her palms. She backed away and, realizing she was going to die, screamed.

"Aaaahhhhh!"

SCREEEECH!

Amy sat bolt upright. She took a deep breath and looked around for the source of the noise only to see she was still sitting at her desk in the classroom. But it wasn't her classroom. At least, she didn't think it was. But if it wasn't, where was she?

The whole room had been blackened and the smell of smoke was heavy in the air. This simply had to be a dream, couldn't it? In fact, she was pretty sure she could still feel the heat of flames coming from somewhere. The desks were blackened and the floor was soft with a layer of ashes. Amy gasped as she realized charred skeletons were sitting in the desks. And moving! The "skeletons" continued to move as if they were doing school work, as if nothing had happened. One skeleton, sitting in Arnold's seat, glanced over at her.

"Amy, are you okay? You're looking a bit pale. Oh, do you know the answer to number seven?" it said in Arnold's voice.

That was when she screamed. Sulfur filler her nostrils and she began fidgeting in her seat. She tried to get up, but was somehow stuck to the seat. Her screams echoed in the burnt out building.

"Somebody get me the fuck out of here!"

SCREEEECH!

That sound again! She snapped her head forward. The substitute teacher was still sitting at the desk. Except, he looked... different.

His face was pitted and red. A large chunk of flesh was missing from his cheek, so his teeth were visible. His right hand was now covered in a dirty glove with metal fingers, each with a blade about five inches long. His shirt was a dirty red and green Christmas sweater and on his head was a battered, brown fedora. The name plate on the desk identified him as, "Mr. Krueger."

"Looks like you missed the fire drill, Ms. Sterling," the sub said. His voice was deep and scary, like a cross between a groan and a growl. Amy sat up, ready to run. Suddenly, the man was upon her, as if he teleported to her. He raised his gloved hand and pressed it to her neck and face. She could feel the index blade pressing down a little too close to her eye. Slivers of her hair fell away after being cut away by the blade. Amy let out a whimper as the man spoke.

"What are you whimpering about? I haven't even cut you yet..."

The man disappeared. Amy looked around for him. She didn't see him and breathed a sigh of relief.

She felt something cold on her backside. Cold steel cut into her shirt and against her back. Something wet pressed itself to Amy's neck. It moved. Amy jerked away from it, but it still found its way back to her.

Krueger pulled his tongue away from her and reached around for her chest. He put one blade inside her collar and began slicing down, the flayed cloth falling away from her small breasts-

"Enough!" Amy screamed as she threw Krueger off of her.

"Feisty little bitch, huh!" Krueger whipped around in front of her and sat down in a chair Amy was sure he had pulled from thin air. He put the elbow of his clawed hand on the desk and put one blade against her neckline.

"Guess what? Come on, guess!"

Amy backed up in surprise and shook her head.

"You're in my world now, bitch. And in my world, you do as I say. And I say..."

Krueger leaned forward so Amy could smell his hot, smelly breath. The holes in his cheeks dripped blood, the metallic odor mixing with his foul breath and making her gag. Amy could see the muscles in his cheek twitch and move as he spoke.

"Die!" Krueger whispered harshly. He drew back his knives and thrust forward. The index blade pressed against Amy's shoulder and she screamed. The blade went in smoothly, slicing skin, flesh, muscles, nerves, scraping past bone. Amy felt the blade scratch her shoulder blade and twitched, causing the blade to twist and open the wound so blood poured out onto the desk. The pain-

...

Amy woke with a start! She sat bolt upright in her bed and let out a loud scream of pain. She instinctively grabbed her shoulder, fully expecting to pull it away covered in blood. Tears flowed down her face as she tried to bury the pain with meditation. It was difficult, but she managed. She examined the spit and found no blood. She was fine.

Amy fought to regain control of herself, finally drying her eyes and calming herself down.

"It's just a dream," she told herself. "You're awake now, and he can't get you." But no matter how many times she told herself that, she didn't believe her own words.

She dried her eyes one last time and looked around her room. The walls were covered in a lot of somewhat girly posters, most of them containing revealing images of Channing Tatum and Taylor Lautner. There were also posters for several horror movies as well, a stark juxtaposition with the bare-chested likes of the Hollywood hunks.

Amy crawled out of her bed and walked towards the comfortably cramped space of her personal bathroom, which was the second of three doors in her room, the other two being the door to the living room and her closet. She closed the door and sat down on the toilet. She looked over and looked on the counter for her bottle of caffeine pills. She popped the lid, poured out two of them, and dry swallowed them. She put the pills back on the counter, reached into her bra and pulled out her cellphone. She scrolled down her contacts and came across the name and number of Cameron.

At the moment, Cameron Miller was asleep in his bed. It was only when his phone began to ring loudly that he was aroused from his peaceful sleep. Cameron wiped his brown hair from his eyes and looked at the display, seeing Amy's name.

"Hey, babe, what's up?" he said sleepily into the phone.

"I had another one," she said to him.

"What happened this time?" Cameron was fully awake now. This was the third night in a row.

"He's getting stronger," Amy cried softly into the phone. "He stabbed my shoulder with his knives. I wasn't bleeding when I woke up, but it still hurt. That's never happened before."

"Well you're awake now," Cameron soothed. "So you're safe. If you want, I can come over and stay up with you."

"No," Amy said with a laugh. "Two nights together was enough; I can't ask you to do it again. Besides, we have school in the morning and you need your sleep."

"Hey, Cunningham's tests are a breeze," Cameron said. "Besides, I don't think I could function properly if I wasn't 100% sure that you were going to be alright."

"Cameron, please," Amy blushed. "Are really going to sneak out a third night in a row for me?"

"For you, and only you, baby," Cameron smiled. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"Thank you," Amy said. "You're the best boyfriend I could ever ask for."

Amy hung up the phone and let out a huge sigh of relief. Cameron had been her boyfriend for almost a year now and it was when the nightmares had started only the previous Friday that things between them started getting serious. When Cameron had come over that first night, she had given herself to him and they spent every waking moment together the following two days, prompting much joking ridiculing from Cameron's immature friends, Dustin and Randal.

Amy cleaned herself up and walked back into her room. She opened her closet door and glanced through it, looking for something to wear for when Cameron got there. She pulled out a loose-fitting purple night-shirt and a long white skirt, and laid them down on the back of a chair. She pulled her shirt and bra off and let her breasts dangle free for a moment before putting on the shirt. She pulled off her underwear before pulling the skirt on, and tossed them in a laundry hamper near the front door. She paused for a moment to listen for her parents, who were sleeping in their own room down the hall. Nothing; all was quiet.

Amy lay back down on her bed and waited for Cameron to climb the tree outside her window and tap the window to let her know he was there. She put a set of headphones into her ear and turned her iPod up to full volume.

"_I'm waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting and fading, waiting and fading!_

_When you see yourself in a crowded room,_

_Do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?_

_Do you step in line or release the glitch?_

_Do you think she'll sleep with a panic switch?"_

Amy closed her eyes, and felt something wet between her legs. God, Cameron wasn't even here yet and she was already getting excited. Then, she was drowning.

Her bed had become like water, causing her to drop like a stone deep inside it. She took in a sharp breath, nearly filling her lungs with water. She struggled against something that was holding her ankle, trying to drag her down into the depths. She made a grab for… anything. She reached her hands upwards, and her fingertips broke the surface.

She groped around, and found purchase on the edge of her bed. She pulled herself up with all her strength, but it felt like she had suddenly gained about a hundred and seventy-five pounds. She pulled her head above the water and saw Cameron tapping on the window outside, but just tapping. He wasn't banging on the glass, or calling for help. Couldn't he see that she was drowning?

"Help me!" Amy shouted. "Cameron! Save me!" She screamed again before a razor-gloved hand sprang from the water, covered her mouth, and dragged her back down.

Cameron looked in on the sleeping Amy and smiled. God, she looked so cute while she slept. He began to fiddle with the edge of the window, trying to find a way to jimmy it open so he could wake her up gently.

Amy continued thrashing about in the water, feeling the razor-sharp talons cut at her flesh. She could barely see the horrible visage of Krueger through the water, laughing as he cut at her again and again. Amy managed to, somehow, break free of Krueger's grasp and made another bold kick for the surface. She broke the water again and pulled herself over the side. She landed on the floor in a heap and snapped her eyes open.

Cameron was baffled by what he had just seen. One second, Amy was asleep soundly on her bed, and the next she was thrashing about wildly before launching herself to the floor, now soaking wet. Something on the bed moved, rising up to form a humanoid shape behind Amy. A razor blade or something came through the sheet and ripped straight down, and a tall, burnt man emerged, stepping down to the floor with an evil smile. Cameron stared for a long moment before finally coming back to reality and began banging on the window pane, trying to break it and get inside to save Amy.

Soaked from head to toe in a mix of blood and water, Amy looked up at the window and saw Cameron beating on the window. He was shouting something, but Amy couldn't hear him.

"What?" she asked nervously.

"BEHIND YOU!" Cameron shouted.

Amy turned to see Krueger standing mere inches away from her. Krueger jumped her, pinned her to the floor, and began ravishing her. He pulled her skirt up and used his talons to rip away her shirt, letting her breasts fall free.

"I always did like 'em young," Krueger said menacingly. "Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…" He punctuated his sentence with a devious laugh and sliced Amy's arm deep, blood flowing onto the carpeted floor.

Amy screamed and kicked Krueger away. He growled and slashed at her pretty face, cutting away the locks of hair that fell in front of her face and leaving four, perfectly symmetrical, bloody gashes ranging from her forehead, across her eyes and nose, and down her lips, the blood gushing down her alabaster cheek. Amy screamed again just as Cameron finally found the strength to break the glass and her father broke down the door.

Cameron leaped through the window and threw himself on Krueger, who twirled around and backhanded him across the arm with his glove. The force of the blow sent Cameron backwards; he felt the tips of the blades cut him, but he didn't feel them go any deeper than the skin. Krueger whirled back towards Amy, and saw her father cradling her in his arms. Her father looked up at Krueger, who simply smiled.

"You're not real," he said. "You were killed years ago!"

"I got better," Krueger whispered.

"We'll stop you," her father vowed. "We've done it before!"

"We'll see, fucker," Krueger laughed as he vanished, seemingly winking out of existence. "We'll see..."

Krueger's words hung in the air as Cameron stood. Amy's father stared at where Krueger had been, saying nothing.

"You know who that was?" He asked Cameron sharply. Cameron just stared off into space, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened. His eyes drifted down to Amy, and then opened wide in terror.

"Amy!" Cameron shouted. Amy's eyes were open, but they had begun rolling back into her head, and her body had started convulsing in her father's arms. Spittle pooled at the corner of her mouth, dripping down her face as her father began screaming!

"No!" her father called out. "AMY!"

Proceed to Next Chapter...


	2. Moving Blues

So first off: apologies for the delay in posting new chapters to my stories. I just moved to a new city, and I've been concentrating more on my original works than my fan-fiction. But in all, only a momentary hiatus: here now is the next chapter to "Children of Elm Street," in which we are introduced to our main character. And more to come after the holidays, folks. In the meantime, don't fall asleep...

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

Moving Blues

August 3rd, 2014

1428 Elm Street. It is a fairly nice house; a rather unremarkable structure, not much different than others in the neighborhood. The front door was red with a small window in the center. The roof was an ugly green color and the walls were a brilliant white. There were three windows in a line on either side of the door, and six more looked down on the lawn from the second floor. A flower trellis climbed up the house just to the right of a small porch.

Michael King smiled as he pulled into the driveway with the Ford Expedition loaded down with his family's belongings. A massive U-Haul van pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

Inside the SUV, Michael looked around at his family. His wife, Kelly, was asleep against the back of her chair while his twelve-year-old son, Carson, was enjoying a movie on his iPhone. Taylor, his niece, was listening to music on an iPhone of her own, oblivious to anything else in the world.

"Guys, we're here. Everyone out." He looked over at Kelly. "That means you too, babe," he said, giving his wife a poke in the belly. She awoke with a start.

Taylor opened the door handle and stepped outside to look at the house. Taylor was seventeen, about 5' 4" with hair that was blond as butter, with a full, curvy figure.

Carson, her cousin, was about an inch taller than Taylor, despite being about five years her junior. He had curly brown hair, which made him look five years older than he really was; the only giveaway was the obvious fact that Carson was still going through puberty. Pimples dotted his face and his voice cracked when he spoke.

Taylor came around to the rear of the vehicle and popped open the cargo door. Carson wedged in next to her and grabbed a box labeled "Carson's Room." Taylor followed behind with another box, labeled "Taylor."

The U-Haul was backing into the driveway, pulling to a stop against the garage. Michael was directing them back as Taylor made her way up the steps of the new house behind Carson. Kelly was just opening up the door, and the three of them stepped inside.

The interior was just as pretty as the exterior. The stairs were directly in front of the door in the entrance hall, which opened up directly into the living room on the left side of the door. It was massive, and beyond that, Taylor could see a dining room with a beautiful crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

"Oh my God," Kelly gasped. "It's even more beautiful in person!"

Carson looked around, and merely shrugged. "It's cool. Nice and spacious," he said.

"Your rooms are upstairs," Kelly instructed. "You and Taylor can fight over which room is whose."

Carson turned to the stairs and bounded up as fast as he could, finding himself at the top landing. There was a door to the immediate right at the top, and another directly across from it. The landing ran parallel to the stairs with a wooden banister between the two. Two more doors lined the wall further down, and the landing cornered sharply back over the stairs and the entrance hall, where the final door stood off to the left.

Carson opened up the first door, which turned out to be the bathroom. He closed it and checked the door on the opposite side, linen closet. The middle door contained another set of stairs leading up to the attic of the house, leaving the final two doors at the front to be the bedrooms.

Taylor had already claimed the last room, the one directly over the stairs.

"I guess I'll take this one," Carson said to himself as he took the opposite door.

Taylor looked around her new room. There was a closet with a set of bi-fold doors, which she thought was neat. The window was one of those with a sill big enough to sit on, and the view of the street was particularly stunning. She set her stuff down on the ground and returned down stairs.

As she hit the bottom landing, a strange odor fouled her nostrils. Taylor held her wrist to her nose and uttered a sound of disgust. She turned around and noticed, for the first time, a door near the end of the corridor underneath the stairs. She approached the door and opened it, the smell suddenly becoming stronger.

"Uncle Mike," she called. But by the time the words left her mouth, the stench had dissipated.

"Can it hold on a second, Taylor?" Michael bumped into the door frame as he and Carson moved the couch inside. Helping them was a kid with short, spikey blond hair and a baby-face. He looked to be about Taylor's age, and as tall as her uncle. Michael led them into the living room where they dropped the couch seemingly dead center. The boy quickly moved past Mike and Carson to get back outside; it was almost like he didn't want to be in the house longer than he had to.

The boy stayed to help, however. An hour later, they had the entire moving truck empty of furniture, and all that was left were stacks of boxes with everyone's clothes and personal stuff inside them.

Taylor was moving some of her boxes into the house when she saw Kelly talking with the kid who had helped them get everything inside. Taylor walked quickly in an attempt to avoid contact, but Kelly spotted her.

"Taylor, come over here for a second, please!" There was no avoiding it now. Taylor dropped her box by the door and walked over to her aunt.

"Taylor, this is John. He lives down the street, and he's going to be a senior at Springwood High this year, too."

"Nice to meet you," John said as he extended a hand. Taylor shook it, but responded only with a smile.

"Forgive her for being silent," Kelly apologized. "She's had a rough year so far."

"Moving to a new neighborhood can be rough, but once you're at school and surrounded by new friends, it'll get better."

"Well, better get back to it," Kelly said excitedly. "This new house is just adorable!"

"Yeah," adorable," John said with a hint of venom dripping from his words. It was then that Taylor noticed John tried his best to look at the house as little as possible.

"Nice to meet you," Taylor said sincerely.

"Yeah, well, I should get going," John said. He turned away and left at a rather quick pace.

"Well, here's something for your time," Kelly said as she pulled a twenty from her wallet.

A dismissive wave was John's only reply from halfway down the block.

Carson had stacked all his boxes near his closet and began unpacking one labeled XBOX first.

That was one thing he would miss about their apartment in Manhattan was playing XBOX with his friends. He would miss a lot of things about Manhattan; his friends, the hideout spots, everything. Even the people he did odd jobs for, which was how he had accumulated a small wealth of $1300 dollars.

The move had come as a surprise to both him and Taylor; three months ago, they were living comfortably in their Manhattan home. Then Taylor's parent, Carson's aunt and uncle, died and then they stayed in New Jersey for a while before going back to Manhattan to move all their stuff.

Now they were unpacking things in a new house in a new town. Things had changed in the last several weeks, and it had been rough on all of them. Carson figured he would handle the transition well enough, but Taylor was a girl, and her emotions got to her easier. He was genuinely concerned for his cousin, and wondered at times whether she was suicidal or not.

Carson heard footsteps and turned to see his mom standing in his doorway.

"Getting everything put away, baby?"

"I'm fine," Carson said.

"That's good," Kelly said, clearly having been hoping for a bigger response. "Well, I think we're going to order a pizza for dinner. Is that alright?"

"Yeah, it's cool. Just no mushrooms," Carson reached into a box and pulled out a long, gray Ethernet cable. He plugged it into the back of his XBOX and began running it against the baseboards around the room. Sensing that she wasn't going to get any more out of her son, Kelly turned and left.

Taylor was putting up her posters when her aunt walked in. Taylor didn't say a word as Kelly shut the door behind her.

"I like the room so far," Kelly beamed.

"Thanks," was Taylor's simple response before returning to silence.

"Still down in the gutters about the move?"

Taylor put another piece of tape on a Star Trek poster and nodded.

"Look, I know this whole last year wasn't easy for you: losing your parents, moving here, leaving your old life behind. But you didn't just lose your mother; I lost my sister. It's gonna be hard on both of us for a while, so if there's anything you want to talk about…"

"Maybe a little warning would have been nice," Taylor mumbled under her breath.

"We told you we were moving," Kelly said sharply.

"Yeah, a week before I came home to find that truck backing into our driveway!" Taylor pointed out the window at the U-Haul truck still parked outside.

"If I had the choice, I would have stayed in Forest Green!"

"Well you didn't have a choice! I wish there was another way, but in order to be able to support you, your uncle had to take this new job, he had to start immediately, and we had to move."

"So I'm just a burden on you? Thanks that makes me feel so much better!" Taylor shouted.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," Kelly said sounding apologetic. "Taylor, I love you. Your uncle loves you. Your cousin loves you. If we didn't love you, we wouldn't have taken you in. Your only other choice was foster care, and ask your uncle Mike how fun that is."

Taylor just shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said as she looked down at the floor.

"I know," Kelly said. "Now, we're gonna order pizza for dinner tonight because the utilities can't get turned on until tomorrow. Also, tomorrow is when you and Carson go enroll into school."

Taylor nodded as Kelly left the room. Once she was gone, Taylor walked over and closed the door. The moment the door clicked, Taylor dropped down to the floor, pulled her knees into her and began sobbing.

Moving from Forest Green was one thing, but coupling that on top of the death of your parents was something that was almost unbearable. Tears trickled down her face as memories of her folks came flooding back. The winters spent in the Forest Green condos on the waterfront; the summers camping in the woods where her father told her the old stories and legends until her mom told him to shut his trap.

She remembered that it wasn't always called Forest Green; before, it was Crystal Lake. The name had been changed a few years back.

She also remembered their deaths back in May. They told her it was a car accident, but when she saw their bodies after, they both looked like they had gone through a paper-shredder, and she knew that _he_, Jason Voorhees, had killed them both.

But there was nothing she could do, and by that evening, her aunt and uncle had come to live with her until the school year was out, then it would be back to their house in lower Manhattan. Taylor wound up sleeping on the couch for a month, and since money was tight, Mike had to find a new job to support all four of them.

But once he got that job, it was no problem quickly finding this place in Ohio. Carson was going to start seventh grade, so he would have a few years to make some good friends before being thrust into the jungle that was high school. And since Kelly was a housewife, the move would be almost unnoticed by her.

But for Taylor, leaving everything she had grown up with behind when she was so close to graduating with all her friends was almost unbearable. And then moving to a new town twice over the summer and starting a new school during her senior year already made her feel like a complete outsider. She was not looking forward to this school year at all. Everything about this last summer was all wrong.

That was why she had been remarkably silent for the duration of the trip. She was usually a very outgoing young girl, very outspoken about many things. She normally made friends easily, but with everything that had happened since May, it was almost like she had changed completely as a person. Carson had even remarked that the only thing separating her from an emo chick now was a lack of the proper clothing.

All of this was going through Taylor's mind as she wept on the floor, but she knew she couldn't keep dwelling on these things. She needed to get out of this house. She couldn't remain a prisoner of her emotions for the rest of the summer (what little remained of it). If nothing else, she could scope out her new surroundings for a place to hide of the shit ever hit the fans. But first, she needed to finish unpacking her room.

She pulled open all the clothes boxes and placed them on hangers inside her closet. Once that was done, she grabbed a small black lockbox, about a foot wide and tall and two-and-a-half feet long, and placed it on the floor under a shoe-shelf at the bottom of the closet. This lockbox contained all sorts of memorabilia from Forrest Green, most of it pictures and mementos from her friends.

She took out her key ring and found the one for the box. She opened it and pulled out a picture of her friends Davey and Carrie, who stood outside of a large warehouse market called S-Mart, both of them tucked into winter clothes. Davey was leaning over and planting a big kiss on Carrie's cheek. Taylor remembered taking this picture that winter. It was about a month before her parents died.

Taylor put the picture away and closed the lockbox. She put away more clothes and began sorting through her massive book collection, which included classic and modern literature, collected edition comics, video game strategy guides, Star Wars books, stolen school textbooks, and written-in journals, and tossed them all on her large floor-to-ceiling shelf.

Just as she was finishing up, there was another knock at her door, but it was less of a "permission to enter" knock than it was a "hey, I'm coming in, hope you're dressed" knock. Carson opened the door without waiting for Taylor to grant him permission to enter, and continued laying the cable around the baseboards.

"Setting up your XBOX already?" Taylor asked.

"Have you not?" Carson shot back. "That's priority one, cousin." Taylor laughed, wiping away the last of the tears from her eyes. The little dweeb always had a way of bringing a smile to her face.

"Well hurry up, bitch! Let's not wait for the grass to grow! I want to play some Need for Speed before sunset!"

Taylor rolled over to the other side of her bed and grabbed her XBOX out of the box. Maybe this move wouldn't be so bad after all.

Proceed to Next Chapter...


	3. New Kid in School

Happy New Year, my ghoulish friends! Today, Chapter 2 of Children of Elm Street has been posted, the first chapter of the Nea Year! Hopefully, the story will be fully complete by this time next year, and I can focus on my other stories! So sit back and relax, but don't fall asleep...

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><p>Chapter 2<p>

New Kid in School

Carson sat on the porch roof with his back against the house. The sun had been up for an hour or so, but Carson had been awake longer than that. In fact, he barely slept at all the night before. It wasn't that he was distracted by his computer or his video games; the internet had not been hooked up yet, so there was no distraction there. He just couldn't sleep. He either couldn't fall asleep, or something kept waking him up.

He chalked up his insomnia to the move, as well as the fact that he was hungry, which explained the pizza box lying next to him. When the final slice of the cold pizza was in his stomach, he crawled back into the house through the window to his room. Before he went to sleep the night before, his mom had reiterated that he and Taylor needed to go and enroll at their schools today.

Carson was looking forward to that as much as Taylor was, which was amounted to "not at all." However, it was something that needed to be done, and there was no reason to delay it any longer than necessary.

The first thing Taylor heard that morning was Carson knocking on the door before coming in. She noticed that he was the only person who did that, entering her room without waiting for permission, but she didn't care; if she wanted privacy, she'd have locked her door. However, that didn't mean she was always pleased when he did so at an ungodly hour of the morning.

"Unless you have a very good reason for waking me up at…" Without so much as lifting her head, Taylor opened one eye and glanced at her clock before closing it again. "…8:30 in the morning, you will not live to see 8:30 tonight."

"You need to get around so we can go to the school and get enrolled," Carson stated as he yanked Taylor's bed sheets back. Taylor squealed, fully awake now, as she tried and failed to grab the sheets and pull them back! Given that all she was wearing was a white spaghetti-strap shirt and a pair of panties, it suddenly became extremely cold!

"Ah! Okay, I'm awake, you little turd-burglar!" Taylor laughed as she drew her legs up to her chest in an attempt to keep warm, but doing so pulled her panties into a full front-to-back wedgie, giving Carson an unwanted eyeful.

"Gross," he said to himself. Suddenly realizing what had happened, Taylor sat bolt upright and covered herself with a pillow, her cheeks becoming extremely flushed with embarrassment.

"Just get dressed," Carson said as he shook his head.

...

Dustin Wallace sat at one of the outdoor lunch tables at Springwood High School as he waited for his Randal to show up. They were picking up their schedules today, so the shop would be closed until noon anyway, but Dustin wanted to get back as quickly as possible. The school was swarming with students trying to do the same, as well as locate their classes before the first day; it was making Dustin claustrophobic. And the fact that Randy was taking his sweet ass time getting here wasn't helping matters at all.

"Dusty!" There was a shout from behind Dustin, and he instinctively turned. There was a young kid with close-cropped hair that made him look like a member of a late-nineties boy band and wore a tight-fitting Superman shirt to advertise his 5'11" athletic build. Randal also had in his hands a large McDonald's sack.

"I have food," Randal said as he dropped the bag in front of his cousin.

"You have solidified grease," Dustin said as he pushed the bag away. "How can you eat that stuff?"

"Like this," Randal said as he pulled a burger out of the bag and began devouring it before he had completely removed the wrapper.

"Disgusting," Dustin said as a pickle slid from the burger onto the table. Despite being a near mirror image of his cousin, Dustin was a bit bigger than Randy and also had square-frame glasses, which he never took off. His hair was short and curly, which seemed to drive girls (and women of a certain age) absolutely wild.

"Have you seen Cameron?" Randal asked with a mouthful of cheeseburger.

"Not since he went home on Friday," Dustin answered. "He has a shift today, so we'll see him then."

"I know, I just-" Randal stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a pretty young blonde girl walking towards their table through the throngs of people. She had this aura that spoke of insecurity, but she seemed nice and approachable enough. She was kinda cute, too.

The girl approached their table and stared at Randal for a moment. Randal smiled wide, but too late realized his mouth was still full of chewed up burger. His face dropped like a stone, and he quickly swallowed; however, he nearly choked on the sandwich as it went down and he was thrown into a coughing fit.

"Gross," Dustin said to his cousin.

"Uh, you wouldn't happen to know where the main office is, do you?" the girl asked.

"Yeah," Dustin said as Randal took a long, loud sip from his drink to wash down the burger. "From this end of the building, go inside the double doors and follow the blue lockers around the library and take the stairs on the right."

"Thank you," the girl said. She turned back to Randal, who was busy using the collar of his shirt to give his teeth a quick clean. Caught red-handed in the act, Randal stopped dead and looked back up at the girl, and smiled a real smile this time.

The girl, however, didn't smile back right away; instead, she merely said, "So did you spit or swallow?" She then cracked a thin smile and turned away towards the building. Dustin was having a hard time trying to keep his laughter contained; he failed.

"Somebody call 911, Randy just got burned!"

"Fuck you!" Randal shouted, throwing his burger at his cousin. The sandwich went wide right and beamed a stick-thin redheaded woman, who kinda resembled Meryl Streep, and whom everyone knew as Mrs. Webber, right in the side of the head. The bun fell to the ground, but the cheesy, ketchup-smeared patty remained in place. The woman reached up and grabbed the greasy sandwich, sliding it off the side of her face.

"A statistical analysis of the situation indicates the following solution," Randal said as he saw the woman searching around for the culprit. "Get the fuck out of dodge."

Dustin nodded and slowly got up from the table. The woman looked around in their direction, but a massive crowd crossed her field of vision, allowing Dustin and Randal to escape with their lives.

When Taylor had arrived at Springwood High after dropping off Carson at the middle school, she had been kinda lost. This was understandable, as the school campus was pretty big.

Built on a large portion of land near the edge of town, Springwood High School had been around since the sixties. The main building was a massive two-story tall structure, with a covered open path leading from one side of the building to another building behind it that was equally tall, but didn't have windows like the main building.

The parking lot took up nearly an entire block. It curved around a small fishing pond that was nestled in a lightly wooded area directly in front of the school. Looking around, she tried to find someone to ask for directions, and who looked like they would actually direct her in the right way.

That was when she had seen the two guys sitting at the table. One wore glasses and had short, curly hair while the other was more athletic and had shorter hair.

The shorter haired one had been kinda cute. He also had a McDonalds sack and she thought she might ask for a fry or two. Or, shay may not even have asked at all and just taken a few anyway.

Turns out, the guy was also a complete and total dork. But she was really amused by his apparent absent-mindedness; that was why she made the joke at his expense, then made her quick exit. Perhaps if he saw her in the hallway at school, he might remember her. She knew that she would.

Taylor watched the pair as they ducked through crowds until they were out of sight of the woman they had hit before she turned to the building before her and went inside.

Carla Miller left her cell phone inside the main office when she went to make copies of a few papers for Principal Webber, which is why she answered it with haste when she returned to find it ringing loudly on the counter.

"Hi, mom," Carla said into the phone as she cradled it on her shoulder. "No, I can totally talk," she said.

At that moment, Ms. Webber walked into the office with a paper towel, wiping away a bunch of grease off her face. Carla looked at Ms. Webber and let out a chuckle.

"What are you doing, sweetie?" Carla's mom asked from the other end of the line.

"I'm doing schedule pick-up at the school," Carla responded. She set her papers down and took the paper towel from Ms. Webber so she could help her wipe off her face.

"I'd rather be doing that," her mom joked. "We're getting ready to bust a meth lab." Carla let out a laugh as she mentally pictured her mom, who was a police officer, donning riot gear as she chatted on the phone. She always called Carla before an operation, just in case she didn't come back from it. But her mom was a professional at what she did, so there was always little worry from Carla's end.

"Sounds exciting. Where is this one?" Carla asked her mother.

"This one's out west of Springwood, near that old factory." A shiver went up Carla's spine, but she didn't show it for the sake of Ms. Webber.

"Well you just be careful, mom," Carla said into the phone.

"I will, baby. I love you," she said.

"I love you too, mom," Carla said as she hung up the phone.

"Your mom?" Ms. Webber asked as she took the paper towel from Carla's hands. Carla nodded.

"She's getting ready to go raid a suspected meth lab," Carla said. "Why are there condiments on your face?"

"Some kid hit me with a cheeseburger, then ran off." Ms. Webber said. "Probably some senior who thinks he can get away with it just because it's summer. Anyway, what's first, Ms. Miller?"

Carla let out an excited giggle. "Ms. Miller. It sounds so weird to actually hear it."

"I know how you feel," Ms. Webber said. "Just like you, I remember being a student here years ago. Although, for you, that was only five years ago. Me, it was nearly three decades ago. And now to actually teach here, it's just surreal."

"Technically, you're the principal now, Ms. Webber," Carla corrected.

"Carla, you're my assistant principal now; you don't have to call me 'Ms. Webber' anymore. Just stick with Lisa, okay? So what's first?"

"Well," Carla looked over the files in her hand. "We have a new student who is completing her enrollment today. Out-of-state transfer, it looks like."

"What's the name?" Lisa asked.

"Taylor King," Carla said. "Oh, it looks like she's coming in now." Carla motioned beyond the large floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows that made up the wall of the office overlooking the student lobby. A young girl with blonde hair was making her way up the steps.

As Taylor had suspected from her directions, the office was on the second floor of the school, directly above what she deduced as the entrance lobby. A set of stairs led up to a platform where the office entrance was; Taylor climbed them and walked through the glass door. Two women were standing near a desk; one of them Taylor recognized as the woman who got hit with the burger. Taylor considered informing her that she still had a glob of ketchup under her ear.

"You must be Taylor," the redheaded woman said. "I'm Ms. Webber, the principal here at Springwood High School. And this," Ms. Webber motioned to Carla. "This is Ms. Miller, the assistant principal."

"Hi," Taylor said.

"Would you kindly step into my office here, please, and we'll continue with your enrollment." Taylor followed Ms. Webber into her office, who then shut the door behind them. Ms. Webber took a seat on the other side of a desk that was somewhat disorganized. The wall behind her was filled with certificates, medals, and a host of other prizes. Near them, on another wall, were pictures of a younger Ms. Webber with a rather handsome young man. None of the pictures gave him an identity, but several showed the pair getting rather romantic.

"You just moved here, correct? From…?" Ms. Webber looked at the file in her hands. "New Jersey, it says. That's quite the displacement. What made your parents decide to move?"

"My aunt and uncle," Taylor corrected. "It was a whole host of things; this summer hasn't exactly been easy."

"Your parents died, didn't they?" Ms. Webber asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "Right before summer started. My aunt and uncle picked me up and took me back with them. Then, we moved down here yesterday."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Lots of people, especially in this town, have lost loved ones."

"Have you?" Taylor asked. Ms. Webber became silent as she thought about the question, and then answered.

"Yes, I lost several of my friends when I was younger. There was this string of suicides in town when I was about your age. But, it's all over now, and I have my husband to help me through it."

"Is that him in the pictures?" Taylor asked. MRs. Webber turned back to the wall and smiled.

"Yup, that's my Jessie. He was my high school sweetheart. We've been together ever since."

"Awesome," Taylor said as Mrs. Webber began filling out Taylor's enrollment forms.

To Be Continued...

1/16/2015


End file.
